Back to NYC part 2

   No trip to New York is complete without visiting Grand Central Station. It's like no other train station that I have ever been to. One of the reasons for that is that half of the people that are there, have no intention of boarding a train. They are there, like me, for another reason...to take pictures of the station itself and the busy traffic of people going in all directions.

35mm 1/30s, f/4, ISO 1250

Carrying a small tripod has advantages, but here I found it difficult to use because it is so short, the only way was to lay on the floor. Which turned out to be a sight for most people in the station, some guy rolling around on the floor trying to take pictures..

35mm 1/100s, f/4, ISO 2000

This is where the Fuji x100s excels - Shooting with shutter speed under 1/30s , where most DSLRs will have a hard time.

35mm 1/8s, f/5,6, ISO 1250

  When you go outside you see buildings everywhere. Grand Central Stations is surrounded by all kinds of glass and concrete facades. I am glad it's still there, unlike the sad fate that befell the old Penn Station...

35mm 1/100s, f/5.6, ISO 640

To be continued....

Back to NYC

    NYC is such a unique place. During the summer I had the chance to visit again, and this time it was for a longer period of time - 4 days, compared to the few hours I spent there when I first came to the United States. Last time around I was lugging a very heavy bag with a bunch of lenses and a heavy tripod, but thanks to my x100s all I had with me was my Billingham Hadley Pro filled with some batteries, the x100s and a JOBY tripod.

35mm 1/250s, f/8, ISO 500
A view towards Manhattan from Brooklyn

    The first day started with an early morning walk around the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. There were only some joggers around and it was incredibly peaceful. The weather sadly was dull, and it remained murky and rainy for the length of my stay which in turn lead to my decision to shoot black and white from this point on.

35mm 1/250s, f/2.8, ISO 1250
The subway train at City Hall station

  The best way to travel around New York is the subway, although it's not always comfortable. you could be waiting at the station and the temperature can easily be around 30 degrees celsius, and then the moment you get inside the train you are greeted with a chilly 15! There is no middle ground, it's always very hot or very cold (at least in June).

35mm 1/125s, f/4.5, ISO 800
Canal Street Subway Station

   Next stop - Canal Street, known for China Town and Little Italy right next to it. Many people have heard about the fake Prada and Gucci bags, but the reality is that you won't see more than some souvenirs and trinkets. What I found really interesting was the people that live and work in that area. I wanted to capture them as they are without them being affected by the presence of my camera, and the x100s was just perfect doing that. With its almost silent shutter, I just left my camera dangling on my neck and started taking pictures without looking in the viewfinder.

35mm 1/1000s, f/4, ISO 640

35mm 1/500s, f/4.5, ISO 640

35mm 1/500s, f/4, ISO 640

To be continued...

Looking for treasure - Part 1

            As promised in my last post, this week I went in search of Sofia's forgotten architectural treasures. I started at Macedonia square and immediately found something interesting.

1/60s  f/4 at ISO640

               I am fascinated by old doors, and I like taking pictures of them wherever I go. There is always something beautiful and different in every one of them. This one has the Cyrillic letters "Г"(G) and "Х"(H) in the bars protecting the windows, meaning that those were the initials of the person for whom this house was built in the beginning of the 20th century.

1/80s  f/5.6 at ISO400

            I like passing by this house a lot, but sadly it has received some new additions with time. A concrete balcony and a satellite dish...Leading me to concentrate more on the street number than the house itself.

1/125s  f/4 at ISO400

            On the other side of the street I found this one peaking through the curtain of leaves.

1/160s  f/5.6 at ISO400

            Further down the street I saw this old beauty, and I just fell in love with the attic window and its wooden decorations. It was difficult to find a good point of view because of the fence in front of the house, luckily the Fuji x100s has a small lens...

1/60s  f/4 at ISO400

                                In front of another entrance - the letters "В"(V) and "Ч"(CH).

1/60s  f/4 at ISO640

1/80s  f/5.6 at ISO400

           Solunska str. has many beautiful buildings, but I think that these columns are it's most well kept secret. If you are just walking on the street without looking up you will never see it. I can't remember how many times in  I've crossed this street in my life, and I think I saw those columns only 4-5 years ago.

1/30s  f/2.8 at ISO1000

            I found another interesting door and while I was taking this picture, an old guy came out of the building and asked me if I wanted to buy the house! "1000 leva (500Euro) deposit and we can talk about sale" he said. I replied that I would absolutely love to buy it and restore it, but sadly I am missing a few millions to invest in it...

1/60s  f/1.8 at ISO1000

1/60s  f/4 at ISO1250

          This workshop was in the basement of the building, quiet 50's music and a soft warm light was coming out of the small window at street level.

1/125s  f/4 at ISO800

1/125s  f/4 at ISO640

         Squeezed by two socialist style apartment blocks and surrounded by glass, steel and a bunch of shops, it's  unclear how long this house is going to last...

Rekindled Fire

        In the year before I found the x100s, I barely took my camera out of the house. Photography was starting to take the back seat, and I really hated that. Somewhere between switching between a few jobs I lost my desire to just get out there and take pictures. I would remember with fond nostanglia when I was walking on the street and my eyes kept on framing different shots. Taking pictures is one of the great joys in my life and I wasn't ready to give it up because of extenuating circumstances. If changing that would take selling all of my lenses then so be it.

        A month later during the first time I got out for a walk in the center with the Fuji, my eyes started darting again, looking for the elusive frame, something nobody else will see. I was starting to feel it again, my love and passion for photography  was back. Now lets see where its going to take me...

48 Hours with the x100s - Part 1

            On my way to the farewell party of a friend of mine I stopped by an antique bookshop, where they have piles and piles of books, but its dead quiet, and incredibly tight. I didn't want for the owner of the shop to know that I am taking a picture, and the x100s was there to help me. I would never have taken my DSLR there, and the loud "CLICK" in that bookshop would have sounded like an explosion.

1/100s  f/2.8 at ISO400

It was already 8pm outside so there were a lot of people going through the underpass, and that was another opportunity to try out some low speed handheld shots of the crowds.

1/4s  f/8 at ISO800

There was another "guy" who was looking at the passing people with interest, but he was probably hoping for some food or a good scratch behind the ears.

1/15s  f/2.8 at ISO800

At the party I heard that there going to be fireworks, and I started thinking about the tripod that was sitting at home. But hey, maybe the Fuji is going to surprise me again and deliver some decent shots, after all...why not? It's handheld capabilities have been something that I was quite impressed with so far...

1/15s  f/2.8 at ISO1000

The next day I met with some friends at the Mall. They had their little daughter with them, and as all other kids she loves going to the rides, and since we were there anyway I decided to take some shots (handheld again). This one was my favourite.

1.3s  f/16 at ISO250

to be continued....

First Impressions

I haven't had a lot of time to take pictures since I got the camera a week ago, because I am pretty busy at work, but here the x100s has given me the ability to take pictures of things that I usually walk by since my huge backpack was always at home during the week.

1/30s  f/2.8 at ISO200

I took this one on the way out of the Mall. 1/250s  f/11 at ISO400

One of the many great things about this camera is that I can shoot handheld with it at speeds that before when I was using my DSLR I would have considered impossible. I am still going to use a tripod on occasion but its great to know that you have the ability to lower the shutter speed if you need to.

On my way to the metro station. 1/15s  f/2  at ISO400

More to come soon...

The Billingham Hadley Pro

        I've been a long time user of the Lowepro camera bags, I had a total of 2 backpacks and a shoulder bag. They are pretty durable, although their weather cover is a bit flimsy, and once wet...its very wet. But let's be honest they carried whatever I put in them, and my Flipside 400 AW has been with me all over the world filled with a minimum of 12 kg of camera gear. After I started selling my lenses, and my D700 had taken it's place on the shelf next to my Nikon N90s, I no longer needed a big backpack. Google has been by my side helping me with what decisions to make from the very beginning. The search ended when I came upon a camera bag company from England, named Billingham. For one or another reason (price and availability in BG) I had never heard of them before. I was amazed to find out that there were people out there that had one of those bags for over 20 years, and they were still doing the job. Tradition, high quality, great design, real leather and waterproof canvas/fibernyte and a huge amount of satisfied customers all over the world - my next bag was going to be from Billingham.

Picture: Kai Sheng - flickr.com

        The next question was which one? They have a huge variety of shoulder bags, and for a long period of time I had my heart set on the Hadley Small. Why would I need something bigger? My x100s was so small, and I wanted to be free from all that weight that I carried with me in the past. But literally in the last possible moment before I ordered it from amazon, I decided to get the Hadley Pro, a little bigger + a handle on the top. When it finally arrived I didn't regret my decision, the Hadley Small..would have been too "small", ironic eh? And after all you are paying quite a lot for one of  those bags, you better be able to use it for a longer period of time, and not for just around your city but for travelling as well.
        Speaking about money, we come to the price tag, and it is a shocker for many, at 300$ that's quite a substantial sum of money for an accessory, luckily I funded it's purchase from the sale of my lenses. The combined price tag of all my Lowepro bags is well over 400$, so is it that much really? But anyway you rationalize it, the reason you buy it is because you love it, and you can't put a price on that.

The x100s

       You can shoot in different frame sizes, from 3:2 to 16:9 and 1:1; Then you have "advanced filter" - toy camera (shaded borders and a greenish haze), miniature (top and bottom blur), pop color, high and low key a bunch of partial colors and some more that I don't intend to use. You have the option of choosing signature fuji film colors - astia, velvia and provia. There is also a pretty good macro mode. A thing to mention is the video, in the many reviews I've read of this camera they say its ok-ish and nothing special. But from what I've seen so far at 60fps full HD, the image quality is awesome, and that's a tool that I will definitely explore more in the future.

Picture: Gary Cruz - flickr.com

       Autofocus is pretty fast, even in the dark it will lock on, but you have to look for contrast in the frame, that's the easiest way to get a lock. And even if you can't do that..then you have the amazing Manual Focus. Equipped with focus peaking and split image, focusing manually is an absolute joy. Don't expect the battery to be as good as on your DSLR, the battery of my Nikon D700 can last for days, and up to 2500 frames or more. Fuji says that you will get around 330 frames out of this battery, but you can probably extend that if the camera is not in high performance mode, you don't use the screen as much and you are taking single images, not bursts. I've solved this problem by buying 2 additional third party batteries for 10$ each instead of paying Fuji 50$ for one. Thats true for other accessories as well, as the third party options are most of the times as good as their Fuji counterparts for a 1/4 of the price, check out JJC photo accessories.

Next stop, the camera bag.

     

Film meets Digital

           The Fujifilm x100s. First things first, it's gorgeous! The moment I saw it I knew that was the next camera I wanted to have. It looks like it came straight out of the 1960's, and that is no coincidence as its looks are based on the Leica M3. It has goregeous manual controls and an incredible Electronic View Finder (EVF) which gives you the ability to see how the picture looks before you fully press the shutter.

Picture: by the Author

Picture: by the Author

           It's price tag of around 1300$ or 1100£ is a lot for many people, given the fact that you have a fixed lens of 23mm (35mm Full Frame equivalent). But what a lens it is, incredibly sharp and at f/2 it works as a great portrait lens as well. I personally relish the opportunity to get back to the frame itself, rather than wondering about changing lenses, zooming and so on. Going from high quality zoom lenses to a fixed focal lenght lens is a challange, but a challange that I look forward to. I funded the purchase of the camera by selling two of my lenses, and I can say that I don't regret it for a second. I haven't felt the need for them since I got the x100s. Due to the fact that the camera itself is pretty rare, accessories are quite difficult to find, and I had to resort to ordering them from amazon.co.uk all the way to Bulgaria. The first thing I added to it was the leather strap from an old Zenit M12s film camera, which is one of the lightest and softest straps I've ever used. Next I added to additional batteries and a screen protector. I am still waiting for an adapter ring, lens hood and a leather case from the UK.
          As I mentioned earlier, switching from the familiar DSLR to a new system is a big thing, and you don't really know what to expect. For the first few days it was like starting to get into photography all over again, everything was foreign to me, I had no idea how to set things the way I wanted to, but after a while it all became more familiar and the camera started to do my biding...

A difficult choice

           I heard about the Olympus OM-D EM 5 and I looked into that, but it's a bit too bulky and pretty close to a DSLR's size. What I was looking for was something lighter and as close as possible to the quallity and abillities of my old Nikon D700.

Picture: dpreview.com

       
             Even though I started with a Nikon N8008, followed by the Nikon N90s which is still my favourite camera body. My entry into the DSLR world came in the shape of a D40 which was a great camera for its price and size at the time. Later I bought a D300, followed by the D700. So you can say that I am a Nikon guy, and Nikon has their own V1 and J1 systems, but I never warmed up to them when they first came out, and that hasn't changed now. Which lead me to the conclusion that I had to look at a different camera manufacturer, which is a big step for any photographer due to many reasons. So where to next?

Picture: gizmodo.com

             I have some old film cameras, and the feel of the controls is incredible, you feel at one with the camera, every single rotation of a knob and the click of it falling in place...So was there something that could evoke that feeling combined with the benefits and quality of a digital camera? Turns out there was....